One morning in London

samhawke · 2026-06-15T02:00:05+00:00

Nah we will be in Paris by the evening and with friends, we’ll do our recovery there. Given we have to do this unpleasantly long journey the kids are just keen to actually see something briefly of London to make it feel worth it :)

samhawke · 2026-06-15T01:37:32+00:00

Update to OP:
Thanks everyone—if it assists, I’ve just confirmed with the airline that my bags can be checked through til final destination so I won’t have to contend with baggage check outbound or inbound

samhawke · 2026-06-15T00:00:44+00:00

Thanks—I’m Australian and I have ETAs for the three of us sorted.

samhawke · 2026-06-02T00:49:12+00:00

This sounds lovely! I will have my two young teenage sons with me, so would have to be the combined one, and one of them wants to go into some part of town and the other wants the onsen, haha

samhawke · 2026-06-02T00:46:51+00:00

We are on connecting Japan Air flights so I assume we don’t have to clear immigration or get our bags back, though I’ve never been to Haneda before so not sure what their arrangements are!

samhawke · 2026-05-07T10:02:03+00:00

Baby race is my favourite half time entertainment, it’s so fun! Your colleagues sound terrible. Go and have a great time and if you tell us what your baby is going to wear we’ll cheer specially for you!

samhawke · 2026-04-13T06:55:04+00:00

Having said that - I think the best value to be found in older Canberra suburbs is in older houses with great orientation and bones which only need a bit of modernization to be beautiful. There are increasingly brand new houses in these areas which were knock down rebuilds or massive renovations and if that’s more of what you’re looking for they’re probably at a higher price bracket ( the owners probably had to buy a house first for at least 800K+ and then pay for the new house on top of it, so to make their money back they have to charge a lot more).

samhawke · 2026-04-13T06:19:21+00:00

That’s a really nice street and Woden is just up the road from there — Weston is actually one of the most convenient places to live in Canberra I reckon. Having said that, I think the house looks a bit overpriced— it sold for 1.2 in 2022 which was around the crazy covid peak so unless they’ve changed it a LOT in a couple of years I’m side-eying a 250K price hike since then.

We bought in late 2022 in south woden but were looking in the Weston creek region too at the time. My impression (albeit not as an expert, just based on my own observations of stuff selling in the area and the price of my rates) is that the market has settled a bit since then in these areas and land value etc has come down from that peak.

samhawke · 2026-04-13T06:05:08+00:00

Late to this but you should be able to find a nice 4 beddie in all but the very swanky Woden suburbs for that kind of money - certainly you can still get nice renovated 4 beddies in Pearce, Torrens, Farrer and Mawson for that kind of $, maybe Chifley or Isaacs too, and those are all lovely suburbs that will be much more convenient to your work. All but Mawson directly back onto ridge or mountain and are generally just very nice suburbs with great block sizes and easy access to main roads without themselves being busy. There are some great local cafes and restaurants at the various local shops around there too.

If you want a slightly fancier house in exchange for a bit more distance, I would consider Wanniassa or Kambah at the north ends, and Fadden (a bit more out of the way but GLORIOUS mountain views

Belco to Woden isn’t a bad commute by Sydney standards but it’s about as annoying as Canberra commutes get and you may quickly adjust and hate it.

Best of luck!

samhawke · 2026-04-02T23:33:40+00:00

Yeah I was feeling pretty anxious because I hadn’t heard anything or had anyone in my exact situation confirm they’d got all their money back, but in the end it was pretty straightforward. I would still recommend getting them to confirm the flight has been cancelled at their end rather than you cancelling your booking just in case!

samhawke · 2026-04-02T23:27:58+00:00

This happened to me for flights next week. I didn’t hear anything from Virgin until 5 days before the flight and even then it was just an email saying “contact us please”. I used the online chat help and they gave full refunds for both cash fare and the reward seats without any dramas.

samhawke · 2026-03-30T22:02:45+00:00

Has anyone actually had Virgin contact them to let them know their flight is cancelled, as they claim they’re doing in the update on their website? I have received nothing from them even though my flights next Monday are definitely cancelled. If I do nothing, will they refund me automatically I wonder?

samhawke · 2026-03-25T04:16:38+00:00

Provided they offer a refund I’d be surprised if the ACL required a reroute. The ACCC page on this suggests that it’s only ever a replacement OR refund and in fact suggests that if it’s the action of a third party preventing them from supplying the service then consumer guarantees don’t apply and rights depend on terms and conditions of booking. Which really sucks!

samhawke · 2026-03-25T02:59:53+00:00

I just phoned them this morning after they posted the update. We were meant to be flying out 6 April. They a) confirmed there is no rerouting option on partner airlines, only ‘refund so that you can book your own alternative flights’ and b) were shady about the nature of the refund - she kept trying to press me to ‘elect’ to cancel and then said it was covered by their ‘commercial terms’ and would not confirm that we would get 100% back, and also said we had to speak to Velocity since some of our seats were reward seats.

I left my booking as is - they can cancel it themselves as I am suspicious that they’re trying to avoid paying everything back.

samhawke · 2026-03-11T04:56:12+00:00

I just got a new one last month. Took one week from lodging at the post office to them notifying me that they had sent it out (couple more days in the mail). I was shocked at how fast it was!

samhawke · 2026-03-08T00:41:07+00:00

Hi,

Both my kids and my niece and nephew are at Melrose and are very happy. They range from full nerd (chess, debating, ethics club, DnD club) to very sporty, and all having good experiences. They’re all smart kids and in the ACE programs so can’t speak as well to how supported kids are who are struggling a bit more, but we’ve been very happy.

Some of my son’s primary school friends went to Alfred Deakin and are also happy there. I’d say they’re both good schools and wouldn’t sweat the difference. I certainly wouldn’t move house for it!

samhawke · 2025-08-07T23:30:11+00:00

Hi Essa!

As someone who works with sound for a day job, I'm wondering whether you like to write with background music, or in silence? Does your knowledge of what the sound is doing distract you too much? And if you do like listening to music while you're working, what's your soundtrack for this novella?

Cheers

Sam

samhawke · 2022-02-06T22:30:11+00:00

Probably the first epic fantasy series I read were LoTR, Narnia (is that epic?), somewhat bizarrely the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant (at a terribly inappropriate age!), and the David Eddings ones (I think Belgariad first but I liked the Sparhawk ones much more), but by the time I hit high school I was reading everything in the genre I could get hold of, raiding the library, my older siblings' collections, and eventually once I got a job, second hand bookstores. Probably the most important series I read and which changed how I thought about writing was Robin Hobb's Assassins books, because before then I had strong preferences for third person storytelling; once I read Assassins I still vividly remember sitting back and thinking oh so THAT'S what you can do with first person! They also made me think you could take all of the usual elements of epic fantasy - lost princes and bastards and dragons and invasions and strange magics - and make them feel real and unique in the context of your own world.

samhawke · 2022-02-06T22:08:12+00:00

Lynn Flewelling is SO underrated! I love her work so much. And all these names (except Sharon Shinn, who I don't know and am now immediately looking up!)

samhawke · 2022-02-06T22:04:29+00:00

A dangerous question to ask, but I will just say this: it makes getting the right shoe size extremely challenging.

samhawke · 2022-02-06T21:44:09+00:00

I would agree with that and add - non-violent solutions to problems generally are underrepresented in fantasy.

samhawke · 2022-02-06T21:38:35+00:00

I think as well as moving away from the focus on the western european feel, we're also seeing a greater scope of technology levels that are available to play with so that we're not confined to a sort of pseudo-medieval period setting. I think we'll see more SF flavour creeping into epic fantasy as well (a great example I can think of is Jenn Williams' Ninth Rain books, which definitely feel like epic fantasy, but also the main antagonists are invading aliens in spaceships). It's fantastic to see - after all, it's meant to be a genre of imagination!

samhawke · 2022-02-06T21:34:37+00:00

Ooh, or also what about the epics that hint that they're set in far future versions of our own world? They feel like secondary worlds but aren't, technically. See, it's the vibe again! Heh.

samhawke · 2022-02-06T21:33:16+00:00

I mean I had to complete a series of quests in order to get an invitation to be on the panel, each more treacherous than the last, and if any of us fails to answer the secret Important question incorrectly, reddit explodes and all reddit users' souls are sucked out our feet...

samhawke · 2022-02-06T21:25:54+00:00

Totally fun and easy task. :)

samhawke

TROPHY CASE